Statistical inferences for cross-lagged panel models without the assumption of normal errors

Panel studies are statistical studies in which two or more variables are observed for two or more subjects at two or more waves or points in time. Cross-lagged panel studies are those studies in which the variables are continuous and divide naturally into two sets. Such studies usually focus, in part, on estimating and testing the cross-effects which are the impacts of each set of variables on the other over time. If a regression approach is taken, then the cross-lagged model is formulated as one or more regression models and regression methods are used to make inferences about the parameters. Traditionally this approach has assumed that the errors in the model have a joint normal distribution. We contribute to this approach by replacing the assumption of normal errors by the weaker assumption that the errors are independent and identically distributed with finite variances. For this independent-error model we show that the usual least-squares estimators of the regression coefficients are consistent and asymptotically normal. We also display large sample tests for the hypotheses of no effects and no cross-effects. We demonstrate our methods by analyzing a set of psychiatric panel data.     

Education and religion: Individual, congregational, and cross-level interaction effects on biblical literalism

Using ideas from cultural and organizational theory, I examine the interplay of individual and congregation-level educational attainment on biblical literalism. Data on 387 congregations and 100,009 worshippers (US Congregational Life Survey, 2001) are used to test hypotheses. Results indicate that the effects of congregational education and individual educational attainment are among the largest effects in models. This study is the first to show that regardless of an individual’s own education, affirmations of biblical literalism are less likely when persons with higher education dominate a congregation. This finding brings into relief the important role of social context in persons’ belief in biblical literalism. Additionally, congregational education amplifies the influence of individual education on biblical literalism such that the gap in belief between college/non-college education individuals widens in high education congregations. This finding suggests that high education persons more deeply absorb the influence of a more educated congregational context.     

Neighbourhood effects on educational attainment of adolescents,buffered by personality and educational commitment

Research has repeatedly shown that neighbourhood disadvantage negatively influences individual educational outcomes. However, the great variation in outcomes indicates substantial unobserved heterogeneity. Looking at the rates of obtaining a basic educational qualification, the hypothesis is that individual traits of adolescents can buffer neighbourhood effects. First, adolescents with a more resilient personality may be better able to cope with neighbourhood adversity. And second, educational commitments might buffer adolescents from negative neighbourhood influences. These hypotheses are tested employing survival analysis, using six wave panel data, containing information on ten years of adolescents’ lives. The results show that resilients experience no negative influence of neighbourhood disadvantage, while both undercontrollers and overcontrollers do. And, the stronger adolescents’ educational commitments, the less they experience the negative effect of neighbourhood adversity. In sum, neighbourhood effects are found, but not for everybody.     

Does higher education expansion promote educational homogamy? Evidence from married couples of the post-80s generation in Shanghai,China

The expansion of higher education witnessed in many societies influences the pattern of educational assortative mating. Structural transition theory predicts growing educational homogamy due to increasing preference for highly-educated partners who become more widely available. In contrast, social closure theory suggests depressed educational homogamy because the inflation of the education elite circle fosters the openness of marriage market, reducing the preference for a highly-educated mate and increasing the penetrability across social-status boundaries. Capitalizing the survey data that are representative of the post-80s one-child generation collected in Shanghai, China, we test the hypotheses derived from the two theories. Empirical results suggest that, with increasing availability of highly educated individuals, the extent of educational homogamy by birth cohort reveals a U-shaped pattern. This U-shaped pattern demonstrates increasing levels of educational homogamy and lends support to structural transition theory.     

Power and the gendered division of contraceptive use in Western European couples

Recent research has approached contraceptive use, or “fertility work”, as another household task that is primarily managed by women. Building on the theoretical frameworks of relative resource theory and gender perspectives, this study investigates the association between partners' power (measured as their relative education, division of housework and decision-making) and the choice of male versus female, or no contraception. Data from the Generations and Gender Survey for four Western European countries (Austria, Belgium, France and Germany; 2005–2010) are used to examine the hypotheses with multinomial logistic diagonal reference models. The results show that man's and woman's educational level are equally important predictors for a couple's contraceptive method choice. Furthermore, the findings suggest that households in which the man performs more housework or the woman has more say in decisions are more likely to rely on male methods or female sterilization, rather than on the more commonly used female reversible methods.     

Educational expansion and educational wage premiums of young male employees: A long-term analysis for West Germany 1976–2010

For decades, Western societies have experienced educational expansion accompanied by an upgrading of skills. The literature provides competing hypotheses on the consequences for educational wage returns — among them are the positional value theory, routine-biased technological change, and the social closure theory. We test these theoretical perspectives empirically on young, male full-time workers in West Germany between 1976 and 2010 in two ideal-type occupational segments using 2.34 million administrative earnings records (Sample of Integrated Labor Market Biographies, SIAB). Our findings show no credential inflation across all levels of education. Instead, the picture in both segments — negative effects of educational expansion on the returns to medium- but not high-level skills — confirms the predictions of routine-biased technological change. Wage premiums for medium-skilled workers differ between segments: the premiums worsen over time in the general segment whereas social-closure mechanisms seem to weaken this negative trend for vocational graduates in the specific segment.     

A social ecology of civil conflict: Shifting allegiances in the conflict in Sierra Leone

Drawing on data from a survey of 1043 ex-combatants who took part in the civil war in Sierra Leone (1991–2002) this paper explores the conditions that predict a key outcome in the conflict literature: defection, or side-switching between the various organizations at war. This paper advances arguments drawn from the organizational ecology school and works to extend key theories related to “Blau Space” to the study of civil war. Using a series of logistic regression procedures, this paper tests various competing hypotheses against key contributions of the organizational ecology school. Key findings of this work suggest support for major hypotheses in this literature as net of important theoretical conditions, defections are most likely when individuals are either demographically atypical of their organization (niche edge) or most susceptible to competition for their services by other groups (niche overlap).     

Change in prevalence or preference? Trends in educational homogamy in six European countries in a time of educational expansion

This paper analyzes trends in educational homogamy in six European countries (Sweden, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Italy). We use vital statistics on all marriages contracted between 1990 and 2016. Absolute educational homogamy increases in all countries (very moderately in the Czech Republic and Italy), it changes its structure, and the absolute educational hypogamy of women increases. The trends over time and among countries in relative educational homogamy are tested using log-linear and log-multiplicative models. We expand a regression-type layer effect model (the Goodman-Hout model) into a four-way table. The results indicate differing assortative mating by educational categories. Relative homogamy decreases in tertiary education. In lower educational categories, relative homogamy increases. We present the hypothesis that a decrease in relative homogamy in tertiary education is a consequence of the rise of social homogamy. We conceptualize this homogamy balance as a “complementary maintained homogamy.” Because changes in relative educational homogamies are the same in all countries, the cross-country differences remain constant over time. We conceptualize this as a “maintained flux.” The European countries are not in convergence, even though the relative homogamies delineated by educational categories change.     

地方医学院校教育经费管理水平评价指标体系构建及实证分析——以某省属医科大学为例

对地方医学院校教育经费管理水平进行评价,是及时、准确反馈财务信息,改进财务管理模式,全视角掌控发展态势的有效途径。文章运用Delphi法和AHP法构建评价指标体系,采用功效系数法进行无量纲化处理,建立多变量综合评价模型,并以某省属医科大学为例进行了实证研究。     

The social context of assimilation: testing implications of segmented assimilation theory

Segmented assimilation theory has been a popular explanation for the diverse experiences of assimilation among new waves of immigrants and their children. While the theory has been interpreted in many different ways, we emphasize its implications for the important role of social context: both processes and consequences of assimilation should depend on the local social context in which immigrants are embedded. We derive empirically falsifiable hypotheses about the interaction effects between social context and assimilation on immigrant children’s well-being. We then test the hypotheses using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Our empirical analyses yield two main findings. First, for immigrant adolescents living in non-poverty neighborhoods, we find assimilation to be positively associated with educational achievement and psychological well-being but also positively associated with at-risk behavior. Second, there is little empirical evidence supporting our hypotheses derived from segmented assimilation theory. We interpret these results to mean that future research would be more fruitful focusing on differential processes of assimilation rather than differential consequences of assimilation.     

试析国内德育模式构建中的理论倾向

我国德育模式探索尚处在起步阶段,并未以系统的道德理论和教育理论作为实践基础。从德育模式构建的理论前提以及构建中的理论基础出发,分析国内德育模式构建的理论倾向进而提出一些建设性观点以期有助于当前国内德育模式的建设和发展。     

Variations in age-specific homicide death rates: a cohort explanation for charges in the age distribution of homicide deaths

An age-period-cohort characteristic model previously used to explain age-period-specific rates of homicide arrests for those 15 to 49 from 1960 to 1995 is applied to measures of age-period-specific homicide deaths. The extension of this model to the examination of homicide victimization is significant because we are able to test the utility of the model across a longer time span (1930 to 1995) and a wider range of ages (10 to 79) and disaggregated by sex and race (Whites and non-Whites). Although the results indicate that past and recent shifts in age-period-specific rates of homicide deaths are associated with specific characteristics of cohorts, there are some important differences across race and sex groupings in the effects of these characteristics. The effects of the cohort variables examined in our model are independent of age and period, often substantively large, and last throughout the life course. The results are consistent with Durkheimian explanations of lethal violence, hypotheses from victimization theory, and basic tenets of cohort theory.     

Skill and education effects on earnings in 18 Countries: The role of national educational institutions

This study investigates whether the mechanisms why education is rewarded vary across countries. Do educational institutions affect the likelihood that support for a particular mechanism is found? Combining IALS survey data and OECD statistics on educational institutions, it was shown that the effect of measured skill on earnings - controlled for educational attainment - is lower in countries where educational institutions produce skills relevant for work through the vocational system. This indicates that the human capital perspective on education works particularly well in vocationally oriented educational systems, as the skills generated in education are strongly overlapping with the skills that are rewarded. An alternative mechanism sees education as a means for social closure through credentialization. Under the credentialization model, education is not primarily rewarded for the productivity-enhancing skills it entails, but rather for reasons unrelated to productivity. Following this theory education is used for selection into the organization, after which directly observable skills are determining wages. Assuming that a strongly differentiated educational system creates boundaries between social groups, it is hypothesized that strongly differentiated systems lead to stronger measured skill effects. We do not find support for this hypothesis.     

The declining influence of family background on educational attainment in Australia: The role of measured and unmeasured influences

The paper examines changes in the influence of family background, including socioeconomic and social background variables on educational attainment in Australia for cohorts born between 1890 and 1982. We test hypotheses from modernization theory on sibling data using random effects models and find: (i) substantial declines in the influence of family background on educational attainment (indicated by the sibling intraclass correlations); (ii) declines in the effects of both economic and cultural socioeconomic background variables; (iii) changes in the effects of some social background variables (e.g., family size); (iv) and declines in the extent that socioeconomic and social background factors account for variation in educational attainment. Unmeasured family background factors are more important, and proportionally increasingly so, for educational attainment than the measured socioeconomic and social background factors analyzed. Fixed effects models showed steeper declines in the effects of socioeconomic background variables than in standard analyses suggesting that unmeasured family factors associated with socioeconomic background obscure the full extent of the decline.     

教育信息化与教师继续教育—现代教育技术培训内容初探

现代信息技术在教育中的运用,促进了教育技术的发展,加快了教育信息化与教育现代化进程。教育者要跟上教育现代化的步伐,必须不断地更新和补充现代教育技术知识,参加培训活动。培训活动的效果如何,受制于培训内容。本文针对当前教育技术培训内容缺少针对性、前瞻性、系统性,通过调查分析提出了现代教育技术培训及培训内容模块。     

我国民办高校实行教育券制度的可行性分析

教育券制度是西方国家对教育投资体制的一种创新,其在西方教育领域的盛行对我国教育的发展具有重要的借鉴意义。本文通过对我国民办高校实行教育券制度可行性的分析,设想我国民办高校的教育券模式,以期为我国民办高校教育质量的提高寻求一条新的途径。     

教育非均衡成因的新视角--公共选择分析

教育均衡是人们追求教育公平的现实路径选择,而教育非均衡的现实又是人们关注、迫切希望改变的。教育非均衡的成因是多方面的,但最主要的而且又易被改变的因素往往被忽视。以公共选择理论为基础,从“经济人”范式、官员经济、利益集团三个方面来分析教育非均衡的成因,旨在指出解决中国教育非均衡问题最易于实现的因素,希望对中国实现教育均衡提供有益的启示。     

教育对经济增长贡献率测度模型的一个改进方法

教育对经济增长贡献率测度模型是教育经济学的重要研究内容,也是综合定量衡量一国教育与经济协调发展的重要方法。从教育对经济增长贡献率的一般测度模型出发,我们分析了一般测度模型在教育质量和教育层次两个方面存在的不足,并针对这两点不足提出了对一般测度模型的改进方法,得出的改进模型具有一定的参考价值。     

Determining the importance of an independent variable: A path analytic solution

Various methods have been proposed for evaluating the importance of an independent variable in determining a given dependent variable. This paper suggests that the analysis of direct and indirect effects in a recursive causal model can provide a more satisfactory evaluation than the ordinary correlation and regression techniques commonly used. The interpretation of an independent variable's impact derived from a path model is generally more adequate because it is able to take into account the operation of indirect effects and spuriousness. To demonstrate this contention, data gathered by the author to explain organizational innovation are presented.     

六十年来辛亥革命研究之学术变迁——以研究假设和研究取径为中心

观察六十年来辛亥革命研究的学术变迁,研究假设和研究取径是两个兼顾理论与实践的最有效的分析概念。因为在不同时期的研究假设和核心概念之下,均有特定的研究对象、学术问题、视角方法与之相辅相成,形成具有某种规范意义的研究模型。六十年来,中国大陆的辛亥革命研究经历了革命史—事件史、现代化史—社会变迁史、后现代视野—社会文化研究三种模型的变迁和兴替。革命史—事件史模型的典范期是20世纪50—60年代,80年代为其发展期。现代化史—社会变迁史模型形成于80年代,在90年代深入发展。后现代视野—社会文化研究模型则在21世纪以来的辛亥革命研究中崭露头角。时至今日,方法视角多样、边界模糊的辛亥革命研究日益成为主潮。辛亥革命研究的学术变迁,是六十年来时代变迁的反映;辛亥革命研究的发展和走向,也必定存在于其对新的时代问题的关怀之中。